


now i see daylight

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 14:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Dan shows up at Phil's flat with a suitcase full of laundry.





	now i see daylight

Phil’s looks all rumpled when he opens the door. 

He’s wearing his pyjamas and an old t-shirt he never wears out. His hair’s half pushed back into a quiff. His glasses are perched, slightly crooked, on his nose. He looks Dan up and down once, then twice, his eyes a little wide and lips pursed into a frown and the sight of him makes Dan want to cry.

The weight of the week is heavy on his shoulders, like the textbooks he had to buy from a uni shop. His room back at halls is littered with clothes he only pulled out of his suitcase today, for this. He’s spent too many days surrounded by white brick walls and strangers and Phil looks like the exact opposite of that.

He blinks up at Dan and says, “Are you moving in?”

Dan has to sniffle to keep his tears at bay. “Can I use your laundry machine?”

“Oh,” says Phil. “Of course.”

\---

He hovers.

Dan knows why. They haven’t talked much this week. Phil texted him good luck the day Dan drove his whole life up to uni and there’s only been a handful of messages back and forth since. He hasn’t been here since his last summer trip to Manchester, hasn’t seen Phil since he moved.

He sees him today.

Phil lingers by the dryer as Dan unzips his suitcase, pulls all his clothes out in wrinkled handfuls. He bounces on his toes as Dan fiddles with the machine settings. He hands Dan his bottle of detergent. His fingers are shaking.

He looks worried. Dan gets that, too.

He slams the lid of the machine closed, the sharp sound echoing through the room.

“Can we play video games?” he asks.

Phil nods. He opens his mouth, closes it again, and says, “Come on, you know where it is.”

\---

“Did something happen?” he asks.

There’s a PlayStation controller in both their hands and a half-hearted game of Mortal Kombat lighting up the television. There’s a furrow to Phil’s brows and a worried sort of frown and a few inches between their knees on the sofa.

Dan swallows, staring at the screen. His character manages to kick Phil’s twice and land an upper-cut before Phil seemingly remembers he’s still supposed to be playing.

It’s easier to think of the video game. He has a room across the city filled with boxes of his stuff, classes filled with strangers and stuffy profs, a fridge full of food he doesn’t know how to cook. He can’t hear the rumble of the laundry machine from here, but he can picture the empty suitcase he left laid out on the floor. 

His chest feels tight. 

“Laundromats are shit,” he says, and punches Phil’s character in the face.

Phil laughs, fumbling with the controller to try and kick Dan back. “Yeah, they are.”

“I’m pretty sure someone stole a sock to wank with it.”

Dan wins the game then. He turns to watch Phil toss his controller onto the sofa, face creased with disgust and a quiet sort of laugh. “You’re never going back there,” he says. “No one’s stealing your socks to wank.”

He’s giggling. Dan is too.

“Except you, right?”

“Oi!” says Phil. He grabs the throw pillow out from under him to chuck it at Dan’s head. “I can wank just fine without your socks.”

Dan’s response is a half-laugh that rumbles between his ribs, a crooked smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. 

“Trust me mate, I know.”

\---

He wanks Phil right there on the sofa, Phil’s pants only half down his hips and his t-shirt pulled up across his chest.

Phil returns the favour with his hand shoved down Dan’s trousers and lips pressed to his neck. He holds Dan through it, palm spread flat against the low of his back until Dan sinks forward, panting, his head falling to rest on Phil’s shoulder.

It feels more familiar, like this. Most of their meetings start with welcome hugs that turn into kisses that turn into frantic touches as they try to erase the distance. Dan’s used to feeling the heavy rise and fall of Phil’s chest under his, the touch of Phil’s hands to his skin, the tired, post-orgasm meetings of their lips.

He’s not used to the ache in his chest, the pressure welling in the sides of his head.

Phil’s hand drifts up and down the length of his spine.

Dan mumbles, pressed tight against Phil’s shoulder, “This week was royal shit.”

Phil hums. He kisses the top of Dan’s head before slowly lifting him up, settling him back down on the sofa. 

“I’m gonna clean us up first, okay?”

\---

Phil wipes the spunk from their skin with tissues and tosses them into the bin before sitting back down, a smile on his face and Dan’s feet resting on his lap.

He doesn’t mention the barely-fallen tears drying on Dan’s cheeks, or the unsteady hitch of his chest as he breathes. His hand presses against the bone that juts from his ankle and rubs in circles, up along his leg until the denim of his skinny jeans pulls too tight to keep going.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks.

Dan’s heard that question before, so many times, usually over the shitty audio and laggy video of a Skype call. He’d have his duvet tugged around his shoulders and the Tonberry plushie Phil got him hugged to his chest and whisper about how he wished he was in Manchester, that they could be together.

He shrugs.

“Did something happen?” says Phil. “Besides the sock wanker?”

Dan laughs. It dies in his chest, a low, bitter sort of rumble, because he doesn’t actually know. Nothing did, really. He didn’t know how to buy his own groceries and he burnt pasta. His room is kind of shit. His housemates vary between too loud and too quiet and he doesn’t fully know how to talk to any of them. He’s pretty sure he’s gonna end up hating law.

None of that feels like enough to explain the heaviness on his shoulders, in his chest.

“Reckon I just don’t like it there much,” he says. “It’s kinda shit.”

It’s not everything. It doesn’t explain that Dan feels it all more acutely because it feels like he’s been waiting for this for years. That he expected this to be his escape from all the miserable memories in Wokingham and instead the white brick walls and boisterous housemates make him feel like he’s back in secondary school. That he’s spent the whole week wanting to be off campus, across the city,  _ here _ .

Phil squeezes his ankle like he knows all of that. Maybe he does. He knows more than anyone else.

“Maybe it’ll get better,” he says. “Or you can just crash here whenever you want.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up.

Dan’s does, too.

\---

Phil switches Dan’s laundry for him.

He lends Dan a pair of his pyjamas because all his clothes are wet. Dan knows he could sleep in just his pants, could sleep wearing even less, but he likes the coziness tonight, likes the too-bright colours and the way Phil looks at him when he pulls the t-shirt over his head. 

Phil never asked if he was staying the night. He didn’t need to. Orientation is still going on and Dan should probably be back on campus but he doesn’t want to be there much at all.

Staying means he gets to feel Phil’s hands skim down along his sides, his lips pressed gently against Dan’s. He gets to curl up under Phil’s duvet, rest his head on a pillow that smells like him, and feel Phil’s arms wrap around him from behind to hold him close.

Dan stares at the white wall in front of him. He can feel Phil’s breath against the side of his neck. 

He’s pretty sure this is better than uni will ever be. 

And maybe that should scare him, but for tonight, Dan lets his eyes fall closed and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to TortiTabby for beta'ing this for me. Come say hi on tumblr @huphilpuffs!


End file.
